Young people are not the enemy

Soapbox

An increasing margin squeeze from work providers and a lack of highly skilled apprentices means the repair industry in Australia faces a serious labour shortage a few years down the line. Garry Edwards and John Guest call for action.

You would not be wrong in thinking young people are unwelcome in today's smash repair shops. Many employers have abandoned apprenticeship training of first year apprentices in preference for employing third or fourth year apprentices. This is a marked shift in the attitude of employers from the middle to late 1980's. Why has this occurred? The issues are many and complex.

Firstly, pressures on body repairers from tight funding regimes by insurance companies have taken their toll. The relatively low payments made to body repairers and the indirect costs of providing trade qualified supervision to care for the apprentice, is not possible due to insufficient cash to meet these human development commitments required in apprenticeship training.

We understand the plight of crash repair industry employers but there is likely to be a vicious labour force downward cycle, which is threatening the long-term viability of this sector of the industry. The alarming trend towards not employing first year apprentices is an epidemic and is further aggravated by some employers who treat first and second year apprentices as a throwaway item. If the young person requires reasonable amounts of development through one-on-one coaching and mentoring support, these kids are seen as requiring too much help and some employers see this as too expensive and too hard. This throwaway attitude is now common practice and leads to a form of industry cannibalisation where an employer feeds off another by poaching their third or fourth year apprentice. Hence a vicious cycle is exacerbated. The employers doing the right thing by the kids and the industry are often the victims of this practice.

Insurance company policies have had a negative effect on the ability of employers to fund training opportunities for young people. But what are some of the other reasons for the downturn in young people entering the automotive industry? Are there enough young people out there to meet the demand?

In the '50s and '60s we saw large families and in most cases, the males in the families would take up traditional trade-related employment. However, with the average family now having only two or three children and parents encouraging them to enter higher education, is there a lack of young people out there? Are we all competing for fewer young people?
Should we be making our crash repair shops more youth-friendly?

The current generation of employers, many of which are from the baby boomer generation, appear to have lost some understanding of the importance of creating environments which appeal to young people. The lack of a youth-friendly work culture often sees the brightest young stars turn into apprentice nightmares, move on, or abandon the industry for more visually and physically stimulating work environments such as tourism, hospitality or even construction. We want to challenge employers to think about how they themselves attempted to change the social environment during the '60s and '70s, resulting in a more contemporary view of how young people at the time saw the world of work and the workplace where they are employed.

We are not calling for a revolution, but we would stress the need for employers to also think about how their own work environments and current employer attitudes may be turning off many of today's crop of young people from choosing to enter the smash repair sector.

However, not all the blame should be levelled at employers. Young people need to put more time, effort and persistence into goal setting, work cooperation and try to understand the world does not owe them a living. While the external market force issues appear to be the major determination of the reduction in body trade apprentices nationally and are difficult issues to be solved, these difficult issues shouldn't mean we should stop looking for remedies either.

We propose an up-front, fully simulated and intensive training regime should be trialled for this sector. If industry and government gives institutes like Kangan Batman TAFE permission, we believe we can contribute significantly in helping employers by quickly increasing the number of skilled people to a level where they are job-ready. A solid 18-month full-time program, overseen by local industry groups, could provide a significant number of employers to recruit from and thus top-up industry numbers.

This approach would also negate the current negative practice of poaching third and fourth year apprentices by providing employers with young people armed with the equivalent level of skills and job application required to meet current customer demands at a more advanced level than first or second year.

While the challenges are many, we believe that with the whole industry working together and expanding their own thinking to include the views of young people, that's the only way we are going to turn the current skill shortage problem around.

We would be more than happy to discuss the issues and possible solutions outlined above with industry groups.

Garry Edwards is the manager of the Automotive Body & Refinishing division, Automotive Centre of Excellence, Kangan Batman TAFE and John Guest is general manager of the Automotive Centre of Excellence.

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